4 ms·

The title ticks all the HN top post boxes. Lisp. Pocket computer. Casio. Eighties.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
It's not a HN thing, it's everyone with a passion for technology, the same way how someone with a passion for cars will appreciate an old-timer rather than his Toyota Corolla. Honestly, stuff like this provides some much needed escapism for me as I feel burned out from scraping all the cruff from the bottom of the Jira barrel wihch is most "tech" jobs nowadays and miss the days I used to just tinker with stuf I enjoy. Now, after 8 hours of shoveling dev-ops/CI-CD crap or fixing last-minute shit that randomly broke due to updated lib or package, I just want o put the laptop away and be done with "tech" for the day.
- airstrike 6y ago
  +1. I hope you saw the dishwasher post from this weekend!
  - jaytaylor 6y ago
    I think airstrike is referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880
- chevill 6y ago
  > It's not a HN thing, it's everyone with a passion for technology, the same way how someone with a passion for cars will appreciate an old-timer rather than his Toyota Corolla. From my experience at least 90% of people passionate about technology have never heard of LISP. If you restrict that set of people to just programmers then a lot more of them have heard of it, but there's still a surprising amount that haven't.
- Hammershaft 6y ago
  “I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don’t think we are. I think we’re responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new di- rections, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don’t become missionaries. Don’t feel as if you’re Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands, I think and hope, is in- telligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.” — Alan J. Perlis From the opening of SICP. I didn't think it was the most amazing quote when I read it but when I hear the frustration and cynicism of many devs on the state of computing it makes me wonder.
  - Gravityloss 6y ago
    Interesting viewpoint. Not a lot of empathy towards users.

It's not a HN thing, it's everyone with a passion for technology, the same way how someone with a passion for cars will appreciate an old-timer rather than his Toyota Corolla. Honestly, stuff like this provides some much needed escapism for me as I feel burned out from scraping all the cruff from the bottom of the Jira barrel wihch is most "tech" jobs nowadays and miss the days I used to just tinker with stuf I enjoy. Now, after 8 hours of shoveling dev-ops/CI-CD crap or fixing last-minute shit that randomly broke due to updated lib or package, I just want o put the laptop away and be done with "tech" for the day.

airstrike 6y ago
+1. I hope you saw the dishwasher post from this weekend!
- jaytaylor 6y ago
  I think airstrike is referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880
chevill 6y ago
> It's not a HN thing, it's everyone with a passion for technology, the same way how someone with a passion for cars will appreciate an old-timer rather than his Toyota Corolla. From my experience at least 90% of people passionate about technology have never heard of LISP. If you restrict that set of people to just programmers then a lot more of them have heard of it, but there's still a surprising amount that haven't.
Hammershaft 6y ago
“I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don’t think we are. I think we’re responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new di- rections, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don’t become missionaries. Don’t feel as if you’re Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands, I think and hope, is in- telligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.” — Alan J. Perlis From the opening of SICP. I didn't think it was the most amazing quote when I read it but when I hear the frustration and cynicism of many devs on the state of computing it makes me wonder.
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  Interesting viewpoint. Not a lot of empathy towards users.